In dry Bihar, liquor has found a new route for tipplers: the railways. Drivers, attendants and employees have been caught in the recent past with liquor bottles in trains despite regular announcements that consumption, sale and trade of liquor in the State is illegal.
On Thursday, a coach attendant of the Patna-Delhi Rajdhani Express was arrested by the Government Railway Police (GRP) for smuggling liquor in violation of provisions of the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act 2016. Acting on a tip-off, a GRP team searched coach B-9 of the Patna Rajdhani express train and seized 15 bottles of Indian-made foreign liquor from a bag reportedly belonging to the coach attendant, Rambali Paswan, who was immediately taken into custody and later sent to jail.
Earlier on Tuesday four employees, including the driver of the Ahmedabad-Patna Express train, were arrested after 24 bottles of IMFL (Indian Made Foreign Liquor) and 64,650 liters of countrymade liquor stuffed in a bag was seized from the driver’s cabin. Driver Mohammad Shashuddin was taken into custody after the train reached Patna Junction.
Confirming the arrests, Patna superintendent of railway police Ashok Kumar Singh said the four persons have been arrested for smuggling liquor in the train. Half of the consignment was delivered to a bootlegger at Ara railway station in Bhojpur, said the police.
“An FIR was lodged with the Danapur GRP against all the four railway employees who were produced in the railway court and later sent to judicial custody for 14-days,” said Mr. Singh. “Authorities have stepped up vigil on long-distance trains following intelligence inputs that liquor was being smuggled in them to the State.”
More than 1.2 lakh people have been arrested and over 6 lakh litres of liquor have been seized ever since the new State Excise Act was enforced.
